TV reports about retaliation baseless: Army

Several news channels reported on Tuesday that India bombed and destroyed Pakistani frontier posts and bunkers along the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries, to avenge the killing and mutilation of its soldiers.

Srinagar: The army dismissed on Tuesday television news reports that India destroyed Pakistani bunkers and killed “several enemy” soldiers across the border in Jammu and Kashmir in a retaliatory attack after the beheading of a military officer and BSF head constable, a news report said.

A senior officer with the army’s northern command said the reports were not true, the report added.

“There was no retaliation whatsoever by us in the KG sector on Monday night. They (TV channels) go ballistic without asking us anything. We will retaliate and when we do, we will come out with an official statement,” the report quoted the officer as saying.

Such misreporting has happened before too. After the pre-dawn attack on an army camp in Kashmir’s border town Uri last September, which left 19 Indian soldiers dead, there were news reports of the army killing 10 Pakistan-based militants trying to enter the area, the report said.